In Too Deep (26 page)

Ethan exchanged a long look with Seth; then both of them laughed. It felt good. Then he thought of Audra and looked at the cabin as it came into view. “Let's go ask Audra if she knows where to look.”

A grunt from Seth turned Ethan back just in time to see his brother falling sideways right toward the steep ledge.

“No! Seth!” Ethan took one step to grab Seth. Something moved behind him and he grabbed for his gun as he whirled.

A blow slammed into his head and sent him falling forward after his brother.

Audra stepped into the cabin to find . . . nothing.

Searching was a waste of time. The cabin was empty. There was a wooden floor made of split logs rather than floorboards, so there was no space beneath them. Log walls weren't tight enough to stuff something in a crack. He'd never been in here alone that Audra could think of—unless he'd come out here when he bought it. Maybe?

With a sigh she looked in both tiny bedrooms. Nothing. She put the girls down to sleep and went back out into the main room determined to look harder, closer. She wasn't just going to assume there was nothing.

The fireplace was open and the stones were a single layer. She'd checked the stones to see if one of them would move and reveal a space crammed with gold.

She took one step toward the fireplace when a man stepped through the door. His gun cracked as he cocked it and aimed it at her heart.

She recognized him from the ranch. Worse yet, by his build, she was sure she recognized him from her cellar.

“Howdy, Mrs. Gill.” The man was bone-skinny.

“It's Mrs. Kincaid, Grove.” A voice from behind the man caused him to step to the side. “Try and remember that.”

“Both your first and second husbands are beyond helping you.” The skinny man stepped too close to her in the tight cabin. The other man came through the door dragging Ethan, blood flowing from a cut on his head.

“No, Ethan!” She took a step toward her husband. The skinny man wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her hard against him, the gun showing as he held it where she couldn't fail to see.

“My name's Mitch, and you're Mrs. Kincaid now. Grove got that wrong the night of the fire, and I knew that gave us away enough that we'd have to move fast.” This man looked far more civilized than the skinny man, except for his eyes. They held the threat of death, more chilling because he did everything politely and with a hint of a smile.

“The
fire
gave us away, Mitch.”

Mitch had Ethan under his arms and came on inside, still dragging him. For one crazy second she considered attacking. Grabbing for the gun he held close to her face. That would be the brave thing to do. If she could get his gun and . . .

“Don't even think of it, Mrs. Kincaid. You wouldn't have a chance against me, not even if I was alone. And Grove”—Mitch jerked his head in the direction of the man who had her in his clutches—“he has a particular taste for hurting women. I'd hate for him to get upset with you.”

Mitch got Ethan all the way inside, then dropped him so carelessly his head hit the hard floor with an ugly thud. Ethan didn't show one sign of reacting to the pain.

Mitch drew his gun with such smooth precision that Audra knew he'd done it before, plenty.

She wanted to ask what they'd done to Seth, but maybe they hadn't found him. Maybe Seth was out there, poised to attack.

She expected Mitch to start shooting and said a prayer for the safety of her babies and Ethan, for all of them. But instead of aiming at her, he aimed the gun straight at Ethan's bleeding head.

“The money, Mrs. Kincaid. Where is it?”

She wanted to be brave. She was desperate to fight these men and win. She needed to do it for her children and her husband and her crazy brother-in-law.

But what was brave, really? She had no chance in a fight. That gun was steady on Ethan.

Fighting was brave, absolutely, but Jesus's true courage came not from fighting but from sacrifice. From giving His life. Audra felt her heart lift. For the first time ever she felt true courage. No, she couldn't overpower two evil men. But she could lead them away. Give Ethan a chance. Maybe even find the money and send these men on their way. Audra had listened long enough that she knew exactly where she'd look.

She sent a prayer heavenward and carried it in her heart as an idea came to her that she knew came straight from God.

“He hid it in the cavern.” She remembered how Julia had twice saved herself by using the darkness and silence. In that cavern, Audra had a chance and she was brave enough to take it.

“What?”

The look on Mitch's face told her he knew nothing about the cavern at all. Had never heard of it.

Which gave her an even greater advantage. Thinking fast, she considered all she'd heard about that dark pit.

“My husband hid it there. We were heading for the cavern right now. But we have to ford the stream behind this cabin, on foot, which is why Ethan was putting the horses up. I was going to show it to him for the first time. I'm the only one Wendell confided in when he was dying, so you need my help.” She hoped that sounded like she was pleading for her own life, when she was, in fact, thinking of these men trying to force information out of Ethan.

Where is Seth?

“My husband—that is, my first husband, Wendell—told me where he hid it. I'll take you there. Give you the . . .” Audra hesitated. Gold? Paper money? What? She didn't know, but maybe these men didn't, either. Or maybe they didn't expect her to know. “I'll give you everything Wendell stole, and you can take it and leave. We were coming here today to get it, planning to return it to the man my husband stole it from. We knew the fire and the shooting yesterday had to be about that . . . m-money.”

She braced herself for them to accuse her of lying if it was gold. There were no accusations. Audra added, “We've had nothing but trouble since Wendell stole that money. I only want to get it back to the man he stole it from and be allowed to live in peace.”

Mitch looked down at Ethan for a long moment. Mitch could kill him and turn his threats to the children. For their sake, even if her precious husband was killed at their hands, Audra would still be forced to help these villains find that blasted money.

With a sudden crack of metal on metal, Mitch released the hammer on his revolver and aimed it at the ceiling. “Let's go then. If you're lying to me, we can always come back. You've got a lot to lose, Mrs. Kincaid. Far more than we do.”

Mitch looked at Grove. “Tie him up. Tight. We want to have someone around to put pressure on the little lady.” Mitch grabbed Audra's arm and dragged her away from Grove. “I'll keep an eye on her until you're done.”

Audra looked out the door and couldn't see Seth anywhere.

“If you're looking for the other Kincaid brother, he's dead.”

Audra gasped. “No, he didn't know anything.”

“We didn't need two men to threaten you with. So we made it easy on ourselves.” Mitch laughed and used his gun to point to a ledge near the horse corral. “We knocked him cold and threw him over that cliff.”

Tears burned her eyes as she thought of that awful ledge. Steep, but not a sheer drop. Could Seth have survived it? He'd been through so much. He'd finally gotten home and had a chance at a peaceful life. And now these men said he was dead. She prayed as she waited for Grove, thinking of Ethan in there, defenseless with that evil man. Her prayers continued even as Grove came back out.

She thought of her babies, sleeping. They were defenseless with Ethan tied up and their mother gone. She had to fight down the urge to start screaming. But she dare not mention the children. Wiping the tears away as they rolled down her face, she knew that prayer was the only thing that was going to give her the courage she needed.

“Take us to the money.” Mitch looked at the cabin with a cruel smile, as if he wanted an excuse to hurt Ethan some more. “Right now.”

“Yes. You have no need to hurt my husband or anyone else. I'll take you to where Wendell hid it in the cavern right now.” Audra crushed down the sobs that wanted to escape and prayed for calm, for her mind to work. She remembered Ethan's story about Seth and the fire. Audra had told Ethan that he'd kept his head. He'd been thinking even in the midst of terror. She had to do that. She had to use her head.

It came to her like a whisper from deep inside.

“Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed . . .”

Dismay wasn't a sliver of what she was feeling.
Fear not.
She clung to that.

Then she remembered the rest.

“. . . for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.”

Peace washed over her as she accepted that there was no way she could defeat two strong well-armed men. Not alone.

But with God upholding her, she had a chance.

She squared her shoulders and looked Mitch in the eye. “Let's go.”

She led them around the cabin and up the hill. She'd never been this way, but she'd heard about it. She'd seen Julia coming home after that awful night when she'd gotten trapped in the cavern, when Rafe had saved her and brought her home.

Audra had listened to all the stories and it was exactly as they'd said. She climbed down the steep gorge to the rushing stream, then picked her way across on the protruding stones. Facing a sheer rock wall, she knew Julia had climbed it regularly. So it could be done. Audra began as if she knew what she was doing, reaching up for the most obvious handhold. They were there. It all worked. She soon climbed to a less treacherous level.

At the top of the gorge, she saw the hole. The only time she'd been in the cavern was the day Seth had taken Maggie in. She'd gone in through the simpler entrance in Rafe and Julia's mountain valley.

Pointing to a heavy boulder that was right where she expected, she said, “We need to move that. The ladder is under it.”

She thought of Ethan's story, of how they'd explored down in this cavern, climbing in and out using a ladder. And Julia had gotten out the time she'd been stranded by Breach, when Rafe had lowered the ladder and found her.

Mitch and Grove threw their backs into moving the rock. When the ladder was there, in a small depression, Audra heaved a silent sigh of relief.

These men still believed she knew what she was doing. They lowered the ladder with its dull clinking metallic rungs.

“I'll go down first,” Mitch said. “We want someone ahead of her and behind her at all times.”

Audra knew it was as dark as pitch down there. If one of them had matches, they'd use the torches and her chance of escape would be much lower. But with light or without it, she'd find a way. God would strengthen her. She prayed and the prayers gave her the strength to remain calm. To keep thinking.

When Mitch dropped out of sight, Audra didn't look at Grove. Mitch's words about Grove liking to hurt people were clamoring in her head. She moved to the ladder, but Grove caught her arm before she could begin her descent.

“You're a pretty little lady.” Grove's eyes crawled over her. “You might need some protection before we're done here. I can make you real comfortable if you stay with me.”

Audra jerked on her arm, but Grove hung on. She met his eyes defiantly.

“You're brave enough right now, but later, when there's trouble, you come to me and let me take care of you. You'll have to pay a price for that, but you'll pay it if you want to live.”

Though her stomach lurched until she was afraid she might be sick, she held his gaze. He had to feel her shaking, yet she wouldn't assure her survival by submitting to any demand he made in exchange for safety.

“Your turn.” He dropped her arm with a smug smile.

Rushing to the ladder, she began her downward climb and felt as if she was leaving the world behind. She fumbled for solid footing as she descended. The cavern was dimly lit from the sun shining down in the hole, but it was murky and she knew from listening to the Kincaids and Julia that as soon as they left this first cavern, they'd be plunged into complete darkness.

Before she'd gotten down, Mitch said from below her, “The ladder isn't long enough. There's a long way down from the ledge.”

Thinking frantically of what she'd been told, she said, “We climb down rocks the rest of the way. We don't need the ladder. Move to the right and you'll find where the ledge has good handholds and footholds.”

“It's too dark to see anything down here.”

Audra kept her mouth shut about the torches, hoping Mitch and Grove would let her lead them in the dark. But if they were going to give up, she'd admit they were there rather than go back to the surface where Ethan and her children were so vulnerable.

She heard the scratch of Mitch moving below her and felt the jiggle of the ladder as Grove began his descent. She reached the ledge and followed after Mitch. His movements were enough of a guide that, with the light reaching down from above, she found her way.